Shared Nightmare
by Shenlong7
Summary: They both want to escape their nightmares, but it seemed like their nightmare's wouldn't let them escape. James Sunderland. Cheryl Mason. Two people forced to uncover the mysteries of their nightmares before they are consumed by it.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter one: Common Ground

Disclaimer: The rights to Silent hill are not mine and neither are the characters.

* * *

You find yourself nearly jumping out of bed from it, but you thank gravity isn't so easy as it keeps you down on your bed and can feel cold sweat running down your cheek. You look up in the mirro and tell yourself it wasn't real, it was all just a nightmare that has no affect on you in the physical world and you go back to sleep. What James Sutherland wouldn't give to be able to do that, to be able to wake up in his bed from his nightmare and say without a doubt that it wasn't real, but he knows he can't say that because his nightmares came true. It was that one town out on the interstate right before you reach Brahms, an exit for the town of Silent Hill, a place that he had had fond memories of once, but those memories were now nightmares that haunted the shadows of his dreams. He never went to a psychiatrist or a shrink because he didn't think that he would want to go there and be pronounced crazy, plus the fact that he was a psychiatrist himself who worked at an insane asylum in Brahms, just close to Silent Hill. That town had called to him, just as it had called to some of the other people that he had met, but it was for different reasons. He had killed his wife out of the hatred and the want to live his own life and the town called him as a chance to help him come to grips with what he had done.

Now he spent most of his days listening to people who were crazy talk to him and he would try to make them feel better about themselves, but he was trying to get his own practice as one of the private psychiatrists because he couldn't take listening to them. Somehow it made him feel a bit better, but that was only because it was good to hear from someone who was crazier than he was, it helped him feel good about himself. His friend, Dr. Alliahs Kauffman, had been working to try and help get him promoted to that, but the world of psychiatry was one of survival of the fittest and he couldn't help but think that he would never get out of it. He often wondered if it was a good idea to stop beign a clerk. Every day he wondered why he didn't just take Laura, his adoptive daughter and leave Brahms, put some distance between him and Silent Hill, but there was still that magnet that stopped him from getting far from it.

* * *

Cheryl Mason was another person who was still somehow held in place by the magnetism of Silent Hill, even though she had had a lot of her worse times in there, but her father had stayed in Brahms. He wasn't her real father, but she didn't want to know who her real father was and she damned sure didn't want to know who her real mother was. Dhallia Gillespie, a witch by another name, a witch who was cruel enough to sacrifice her own daughter's life and condemn her to torment just so she could be mother to some god. She was dead though, poetic justice had made sure of that as she was burnt to death by her other half, that half that was filled with hate nurtured until it turned everything into a nightmare, the hate that she had avoided.

Cheryl didn't know what she was doing in Brahms, it was just an odd that she would take such a risk of staying so close to silent hill when the hatred could still be there, just waiting for her. It was a magnet keeping her in place and it would never let her go and so she had to stay there with her guardian, private detective Douglas Cartland, a gruff man who looked like he something out of a pulp novel when they talk about gritty old detectives. She had completed school there and was now pursuing psychology as a field to be interested in as well as some of the liberal arts, but she was somehow drawn to psychology. Maybe Douglas was right about her, she didn't know nor cared, all she knew was that she was old enough and she started sharing an apartment with an old friend of her dad's, Cybil Bennet. She was going to be an intern at a psychiatric clinic that was also the one overseeing the insane asylum.

* * *

James was barely awake as he stood at his desk, filing out another report on the trouble makers in his wing that he was responsible for even though he was too important for that shit. He just couldn't stand that he was the one who had to be called whenever one of the hopeless cases started philosophizing in the nurse's bathrooms when they were on the toilet. It was more hassle than he had to put up with when he was busy helping other people come to realizations that they were trying to suppress and he couldn't help but think of himself whenever he helped one. He looked up at the clock with a bit of annoyance and then he saw that it was his lunch break and Alliahs was also probably going for his lunch to, just as soon as he dealt with the patient known by his alias of "ratman." "Ratman," or Andrew Kauffman, had a problem with every room he was in, claiming that there were rats scurrying through the walls at night, complaining that he could hear them.

"All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy," said Alliahs as he peered out from the doorway at James with his trademark grin that made him the prankster of the staff. It was strange that he would have something to cheer about when "Ratman" was older brother. "Come on, let's get out of this dump and go into town, get something good to eat for a change."

"Fine, let me finish this thing," replied James as he finished signing the papers then got his coat with him as he headed out of the door, making sure his wallet was in his pocket. _Well, at least I have more money in my wallet than when I was a clerk.__ But still this is less than __sane,__ I mean I thought I would be in a better place for the most part than having to relive the depravity that I faced. _"Okay so why today of all days to go and eat out I mean it's a Monday, the beginning of the week."

"First to celebrate your promotion to regular patients instead of being an insane asylum shrink," said Alliahs as he gave James one of his savage pats on the back which James would always say would break his back one of these days. "Next we got a fine new recruit coming in whose going to be studying under you, Dr. Sutherland, the man who used to be a clerk, but went into the field of insanity. You're going to be rolling in the pussy now my friend."

"You know that whenever you say things like that the nurses start to look at you weirdly," said James as he used his key card to move through the gate and towards Alliahs's car. "Anyway, why is that a reason for us going out to eat all of a sudden? Does she not like skinny guys so we have to start stuffing you to make you more appealing to her?"

"No, you're supposed to meet her and check her out to see if she would make a good employee and then she gets that rare opportunity you never got," said the prankster of Helton Falls Asylum as he started the car and pulled out to drive down to the residential burger joint. "Look, her father was the famed horror novelist who was killed by that cult that originated in Silent Hill and she seems to have some significance with it so we might get something useful from it, but also look out for any signs of emotional distress. She was the first to find her father dead before going after the cult herself and she studied psychology soon after that. Her name is Cheryl Mason and she rooms with an old friend of mine."

"When you say old friend, you must be talking about a lady you banged," laughed James as he looked out his window and gazed out there and just for a second, he saw a face that looked a lot like Mary's. He rubbed his eyes thinking that it was Maria again, that manifestation of his sexual desires and repression, but he passed it off as another mirage that was just trying to remind him of what he really was, as if he needed help with that.

"No, it is a female, but I wish I banged her, her names Cybil Bennet, she's the police officer who uncovered that drug trafficking scheme," replied Alliahs as he looked into his rearview mirror at the other car behind him. "She made Silent Hill a safe place for people again, but she always said that it was Cheryl who did it, probably because she killed the Claudia, the current leader and the other one seemed to disappear completely. It doesn't matter, but we have been looking into reopening the psychiatry ward in Silent Hill since everything else is growing back."

* * *

She stood there waiting for the two men to pick her up, one was supposed to be her trainer or the psychiatrist who was going to be instructing her on the practices of Helton Falls. It was a bit chilly outside so she decided to wear a white shirt with a black jacket and blue jeans, a bit different from the clothes she had worn in Silent Hill, but she couldn't wash the blood stains off of it. The nightmare was supposed to be over, but it never ended all happy and cheerful, it wasn't a movie ending. Her father, the only person she cared for, was dead and she was left to pick up everything that had broken with a little help from her father's friend, Cybil. The train station of Brahms had brought back a lot of memories about what happened, she still stayed far away from the ledge so nothing could push her in. She was just glad to be out of them when they happened, it was a bit scary to be there when someone else wasn't, but she just calmed herself down and assured herself that it was all over, she didn't have to hide or live in dread of that nightmare. Her cell phone ringing brought her out of her day dreams.

"Cheryl Mason, how can I help you," answered Cheryl as she sighed, thinking it was the men who were supposed to be picking her up, but it turned out to be something more sinister.

"It's been so long, Cheryl, I see you're using your real name," said a familiar oily snake like voice through the other side, a voice she thought had long since been silenced.

"Vincent, wha-…how are you alive," asked Cheryl as she looked around for some sign of the manipulative priest of the Order. "I saw Claudia stab you to death, I saw you die."

"That is something for another time, but like always, I'm on your side," said Vincent. "But don't think that you are out of the nightmare, it's still looking for you and him as well, you both have been touched by the old god of Silent Hill and it never lets go."

"What do you mean? Is that thing going to come after me?"

"Relax, Cheryl, it was just a joke," said Vincent with his tone that told her that he was smiling on the other end of that phone. "I don't know if the demon of Silent Hill is still alive, but if it is then it will be after you and that man."

"What are you talking about me," demanded Cheryl as she looked around to see if anyone was there, but it was deserted and she felt an all familiar cold feeling well up in her gut. She realized that Vincent had hung up time ago and as soon as she put up her phone a car pulled up with two men, one a sandy blond man and the other a dark haired man who had a cigarette hanging out of his mouth with a look on his face that said "I'm the kind of guy who wants you to have my children, then deny they're mine."

"You need a ride, Ms. Mason," asked the man with the cigarette while the other one looked annoyed and a bit humored by his partners immature actions. "We know the way to burgers if your interested."

"Hello, I'm James Sunderland," said the sandy blond as he got out and held his hand out. Cheryl didn't know what else to do besides shake it.

"I'm Cheryl Mason."


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2: Where it Stops

Disclaimer: I do not own Silent Hill.

* * *

It couldn't be helped that he kept staring at her, his eyes were just rebelling against him and going right to where he didn't want them to go, right to Cheryl's face. James found the new girl interesting and was quite pleased that she was getting him out of the hell hole he was in with the other weirdos. Alliahs was pissing off the cashiers again by bringing in one of the bottles of orange cream that he kept in a cooler in his car just in case he was ever stranded, but James always figured he did that so he could get into the usual argument of bringing another drink into the fast food place. It was a wonder why Sam, the guy who ran the place, hadn't kicked him out of the place every time he pulled all the stunts he did. Lord knows that Sam had often thrown a spatula at Alliahs.

"You really do meet up with my expectations," laughed Cheryl as she looked at the immature psychologist and she went on her guard when he grinned at her.

"So, what expectations would that be," asked Alliahs as he moved his seat a bit closer to hers.

"Cybil always said you were the thin line between a kid and an adult," replied Cheryl as she sat back and took a sip of her drink with her own grin at Alliahs's apparent shock. "It seems that the times she arrested you left a negative effect on her, so much that when I told her that you were one of the psychologists I was working with she started getting the police record of you to show how many times you had to be removed from Victoria Secret. Especially that one incident when you actually went to one of the fitting rooms to try on something just so you could peek on the other woman in the changing room next to you and when they caught you, you tried to claim that you were just using the changing room, even going so far as to put on actual lingerie."

"Wow, you know what, you can have my burger now," said James with a mocking sick face. "I know Alliahs would do some perverted things but I never dared to think of what perverted things he would be doing. I went to high school with this guy and for a history project he did "Nudity in the Middle Ages: Demonic Possession or Freedom of Speech.'"

"You know I am right here, the both of you," said Alliahs, a bit annoyed by the fact that they weren't even concerned with keeping that stuff down because now the female cashiers were looking at him. "Maybe I should go and let you two elope."

"Hey, watch what you're saying you might say something people are going to take serious," warned Sunderland as he looked around at the people in the burger joint.

"Yeah whatever, I'm just wondering about how it's been for you," said Alliahs as he turned to Cheryl and gave her a surprisingly serious look for once. "The first thing that we need to know is what happened when you went to Silent Hill after your father was murdered."

"You went to Silent Hill," asked James with a bit of surprise that turned all eyes on him until he sat back into his chair and resumed eating his burger.

"Well I found that most of the place was abandoned except for those on the drugs that were still circulating," began Cheryl with a deep breath. "I chased after Claudia but found that most of the place was a maze as well as a creep show and I was only able to get help from a man named Vincent Wolf. He was a priest of the cult whose views were different from Claudia and because of that she stabbed him to death. To protect the already wounded Douglas, I shot Claudia and I did it out of anger, but also out of pity as I realized that she had mistaken me for someone else and was beaten by her father when she was young."

"So she was insane is what you're saying," asked James as he looked at her and she gave him a nod. "Do you ever have nightmares about that place or perhaps you might be plagued by nightmarish creatures from the legends of the town? I hear it gets everyone who goes there and I also sometimes have nightmares of it."

"Yeah I have nightmares, but I hate to say that I have too real an imagination," sighed Cheryl as she fingered her fries, a trait she had when she didn't want to tell someone something. James had noticed that during the conversation. "You must have nightmares as well from the way you talk about it."

"Yes I do have nightmares about it and we both have the same problem," said James and he knew that she was catching on to what he was saying, she was a smart girl.

"Well I guess you might need a ride to the apartment you share with Cybil," said Alliahs as he got up and walked to the bathroom. "Excuse me I have to unleash Niagara Falls right now."

"You'll get use to the way he says things like that, but you'll be mostly working for me so you might not see that much of him," said James before he added with a grin, "If you're lucky that is."

"What was your nightmare like," asked Cheryl as she looked at him and from the bit of terror in his eyes she could tell that he had been through the same hell that she had gone through. "What was it like walking through that creepy place when it was obscured by darkness?"

"Actually it was foggy when I went there, but maybe you had different monsters when you were there," replied James as he leaned back in his seat. "Mine was a guilt trip and every monster that I was running from was one of my guilt, from the biggest one to the small one. What did your monsters come from?"

"Well it didn't really come from me, but another me that was burnt by a fire," said Cheryl as the images of little Allessa Gillespie, her other half, flashed through her mind. "There was once a little girl named Allessa Gillespie. She had these strange abilities that made others fear her and call her a witch, even her own mother shunned her as she just wanted Allessa to give birth to her god. Her mother used her as a sacrifice for her god to be born, but she lived and in order to stop her mother from getting her wish, she split herself in two and the other half was adopted by a man named Harry Mason, my father. He and his wife loved the daughter and after her mother died, her father took her back to Silent Hill as her mother used a spell to call her back. Her mother finally had the two sides joined to form her god, but another man tossed a vial of something that would stop the process and so my father was able to save Allessa from her fate. Before the girl left she gave him something, a baby, that baby was me. I know you find that hard to believe and you might have me committed or prevent me from getting a job."

"Actually I don't find it so unbelievable when I look back at everything that happened to me while I was there," replied James and he got up as he saw Alliahs coming towards him. "If you ever want to talk about then maybe we can talk about it later, but apparently the nightmare is over because you stopped that other side of you. You don't have to live in a nightmare, but me…I don't have that luxury."

* * *

Cheryl lay there on her bed with her eyes partially shut and her headphones on with the volume cranked up to medium, her version of therapy. The music helped distract her from the various nightmares that plagued her most of the time and she knew that her thoughts were turning to the other man, the man who had gone to Silent Hill after her for some reason. She couldn't help but wonder how he had faced the nightmare if she wasn't there to influence the town. Maybe it was her other half that still lived there? She closed those thoughts out, not wanting to even think about what had been going on in that town or entertain the possibility of a nightmare still existing in Silent Hill. When she thought about those things she would hallucinate and start to see things out the corner of her eye. Things like a bloody burnt hand reaching out for her or some other monster walking towards her with outstretched arms. She didn't want to think of the approaching nightmare that threatened to surround her. 


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3: It's coming for You

Disclaimer: I don't own Silent Hill.

* * *

The clock said it was 5:45 A.M., but James hadn't slept a wink since his dream about Silent Hill, his dream about Mary and Maria. It all seemed so real, which was of course the point cause dreams never took the shape of anything you didn't know or anything else that was outside the realms of realistic resolution. The dream was just something that would always haunt him, even when he tried to get away from it, it wasn't like pyramid head, it wouldn't kill itself unless he could finally kill it. The world went on outside his home, cars passing by the street, some with loud music that made the driver seem like a jackass, and he could hear his daughter Laura sleeping in the next room. She wasn't his blood daughter, just a daughter that he had adopted, but she was the daughter that Mary had always wanted if it wasn't for the disease that was eating away at her.

Sleep continued to elude James as he picked up a book and started reading it, not even noticing that the author of the book was Harry mason, Cheryl's adopted father. He was getting into the story very much when he read the first part about the main character driving along the road with his daughter to visit the town where he had found her and then crashes the car accidentally after seeing a little girl standing in the street. The next part told about how he walked into an abandoned town and every bit of it seemed as if it was being written as the author walked through it. James could feel the hair rising on the back of his arm as he read it, but that was because he recognized the source material so much that he was having flashbacks of his own nightmare, it was all coming back to him. Silent Hill, that town of torment, was calling out to him from the pages as if a ghostly hand reached out from the pages and caught his throat in its grasp. As much as he wanted to close the book he couldn't help but feel himself drawn even further into the book by some type of spell.

"James are you okay," asked Laura as she looked at her father sitting on his bed looking in pure shock and terror as he read a book, looking a lot like her when she watched horror movies.

"What…oh yes I am fine, just fine, Laura," said James as he got out of bed and looked at the clock to see that it was now 7: 30 P.M., the time in which Laura usually got up even if it was a Saturday. "Well I better get ready to head on down to work and see how I can help the new girl work there."

"Maybe you can date the new girl as well and get someone to help you get some decent sleep," said Laura as she started making herself breakfast and it was moments like these that made James wonder what the kid had read because she sounded like a mother.

"That's a bit worrying to hear from you kiddo," laughed James as he walked towards the door and then waved to her. "I'll be back at four and then we can go to the movies and see that horror movie you wanted to see, even though all you do is cowering in those movies."

"Just hoping one day that I'll see you cowering for once," replied Laura as she drank a cup of orange juice and then added, "why don't you see if that new girl will come along."

"Again, you got that mother thing going on there and it's not going to get you very many boyfriends," said James as he walked out of his home laughing and got to his car.

* * *

"Hey bro, just thought I would bring you something this morning after the incident last night with the nurse," said Alliahs as he sat down in the chair next to his brother's, Michael Kaufman's, bed. His brother was strapped down to his bed a bit because he had been so hostile yesterday to a nurse who had put on a red coat and he had to be strapped down while he tried to apologize to the woman with tears flowing down his eyes. "We've got rat traps set up so that you don't have to worry about them coming in here to bother you again and no nurse will be wearing a red jacket when they come to see you."

"It's not the rats inside that really bother me, I have never seen one in here," said Michael as he looked at the wall with a sense of dread and melancholy. "I can hear them though, scurrying about inside the walls at night, millions of them trying to get through as if they want me. Even now they are moving about, I've placed traps in those walls and I get them sometimes but they escape from them. I've seen the blood and the used traps, I know they do exist, but for some reason I'm the only one that can hear them and I have to get away from here before they find me."

"Don't worry we're going to be moving you tomorrow to another facility that is rat free," said Alliahs as he got up and walked to the door, turning his head around to say, "Just get some sleep and tomorrow you'll be close to getting better."

Alliahs sighed as he walked to his office, it was trouble being a psychiatrist when your brother was in the ward and it was even worse when it was your older brother. People had always marked Michael as the more mature and had expected Alliahs to be the one being taken care of, not the other way around. He walked outside to take a smoke, the cool winter air filling his lungs as he walked outside, catching the faint taste of the lingering ice in the air, he could tell that it was going to snow or be ice rain. As a kid he never understood the difference between ice rain and regular snow, but when he first got caught in ice rain he knew why. Ice rain sucked, it was wet and cold, but it wouldn't get him out of school because it could never pile up like snow and it always made him sick so that when the real snow day came he was stuck in school.

A familiar car pulled up into the parking lot as James got out with his familiar carpooling partner, the new girl, Cheryl Mason, getting out from the passenger seat. Alliahs gave a loud cat call at the two which sparked some orderlies to start saying suggestive phrases before Alliahs turned to look at them with a look that told them to shut up. There was a king of perversion at the asylum and his name was Alliahs Kaufman.

"Well you should control your strays a lot better, tomcat," said Cheryl which made Alliahs drop his cigarette remembering what Cybil had once told him when she arrested him.

"Oh does she miss me that much, well I guess I should visit her now and then just to help her with that lonely heart of hers," crowed Alliahs before he was given a smack on the back of the head by James to tell him that most women were staring at him and not in a friendly manner either. "By the way we're going to be heading off in a few to check out the new location in Silent Hill."

"Shouldn't we have others with a license for checking places out go there instead," asked James as he gave Alliahs a "you got to be shitting me" look.

"Nope they said they want the two new shrinks on the job with a senior member watching over them," replied Alliahs as he walked to James's car and started tapping on the top. "Come on we're gonna have a quick peak and then you can have all of tomorrow to take your daughter to the movies."

"So where is that senior member who is supposed to watch over us during this whole thing," joked James as he got into the car and Alliahs took the passenger seat with Cheryl in the back of the car. "We're going to be driving right into the ice rain."

"Grand then when can unfreezing the tires on our way back," said Cheryl as she put her seatbelt on and she couldn't help but see the sly look on Alliahs's face. "What is it?"

"You have cat hair on you, do you have a cat," asked Alliahs as he looked at her through the rearview mirror.

"Yes so what about it?"

"Well if you ever need help thawing your pussy I'll help with that," replied Alliahs, breaking out into a fit of laughter before he felt the palm of her hand on the back of his head. "Hey I was only offering my services."

"You are incorrigible," said James a she turned the key in the ignition.

* * *

The drive had been great so far with very little mishaps happening during the whole drive except for James having to pull over so Alliahs could pee in the middle of the abandoned highway to Silent Hill that no one took anymore. It was a bit reliving to James to have it easy for the time, but then again, every person assassinated had a good day before they were killed. The fog and rain came down on the window of the car like bullets rippling on the ground, making loud thuds as they hit the glass. It wasn't the ideal weather for James to be going back to Silent Hill, but he had to face the nightmare somehow, even if he was only bringing himself closer to the special place that he and Mary shared. This time he didn't expect to run into anything dangerous or terrifying since he had resolved his guilt with Mary and Cheryl had long since buried her own nightmares deep into the sewers and filth of Silent Hill. But it was still there and that was the problem was that it wasn't buried deep enough in Silent Hill to stay buried.

"You still awake back there, Cheryl," asked James as he looked into the rearview mirror and he could see that she was still asleep, unlike Alliahs who was sleeping soundly. "It must not be that easy for you to sleep when we're going to this place."

"No it isn't," admitted Cheryl as she sat down and then she looked there to see that he was going to hit something, something that looked like a person. "Watch out!"

"What," was all James could get out as he spun the car around to avoid the person in the road and crashed the car into the railing.

Both of them looked at each other and then back at where the lady had been standing and they saw her running off into the direction of Silent Hill, her movements a bit awkward. James was the first to get his seatbelt unbuckled as he got out of the car with Alliahs finally waking up and asking where they were. The rain had stopped pouring down on them, but now they had snow mixing in with the fog, further blurring his vision of the town, the only thing he knew was that the person was hurt and it was his duty to help them. At the same time he could see Cheryl climbing out of the car and was glad that she had seen the person or else they would have killed her.

"What the hell happened here," asked Alliahs as he pulled himself out of the car and yawned a bit before looking at the car. "Well shit, that sucks."

"Someone just ran out in the street at the last second, they looked like they had been hurt when they walked off," said James as he took his flashlight out of the car. "It was a woman by the look of her."

"Women," asked Alliahs, all of a sudden more interested in the mysterious stranger than he was a few seconds ago. "Which way did she go?"

"She was heading toward the town, but I don't see why you're getting all excited," said Cheryl as she grabbed the map and aired it out a bit, having been soaked when Alliahs ran out to take a leak. "This is exactly how horror movies start out?"

"Yeah but there are porno movies that start out this way too," said Alliahs as he walked towards the town. James looked at the building in front of him and could only feel a sense of dread from it all, as if something was calling to him, something wanted him to come.


End file.
